The document outlines both the benefits and challenges of open educational resources (OER). The benefits include increased creativity for instructors, lower costs for students, potential for higher enrollment, flexibility in learning, and greater equity of access. However, the challenges are that materials may become outdated, developing fully OER courses can be time-consuming, not all materials are accessible, licenses cannot manage future use, and instructors require funding for the extra work.

1. Benefits and Challenges of
OER
Karyna Tytar, Lake Washington Institute of Technology

2. Benefits of OER
1. Creativity
2. Low cost
3. Increased enrollment
4. Flexibility
5. Equity

3. Benefits of OER – Creativity
›OER can give instructors
more opportunities to be
creative in their work. Since
there is no cost associated
with OER, instructors can
pull in materials from
different recourses.
"recourse" by Mike Cohen is licensed under CC BY 2.0

4. Benefits of OER – Low Cost
The prospect of reducing cost of the
course materials for students very
crucial.
"Money" by 401(K) 2012 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

5. Benefits of OER - Increased enrollment
I can see OER becoming very
popular among prospective
students in the future. It may
become a decisive factor for a
student to choose a particular
school.
"DSC04788" by SEN Student Club is licensed under CC BY 2.0

6. Benefits of OER - Flexibility
With OER, both students and
teachers can have flexibility in the
place, time, and manner they
engage with the learning materials.
"elearn_2006_12" by Wolfgang Greller is licensed under CC BY 2.0

7. Benefits of OER - Equity
OER helps to create a more open
access to education opportunities for
a wider student population.
"Fairnesszone" by PatrickSeabird is licensed under CC BY 2.0

8. Challenges of OER
1. Outdated materials
2. Time-consuming
3. Accessibility
4. Non-revocable licenses
5. Funding

9. Challenges of OER - Outdated Materials
Some material currently available
on OER resource sites is outdated
(2002, 2004, 2006, 2007).
"Belgravia VOL. XXVIII" by Shawn Harquail is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

10. Challenges of OER - Time-consuming
In order to develop an fully OER
course, an instructor would have to
invest tremendous amount of time
to search for appropriate materials
for their classes and evaluate their
quality.
"Time flies" by Chris Betcher is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

11. Challenges of OER - Accessibility
Not all OER materials are
accessible which can potentially a
legal issue for those institutions
who adopt them.
"GDS All staff Wed 4 Nov 2015 (14)" by gdsteam is licensed under CC BY 2.0

12. Challenges of OER - Non-revocable licenses
If materials are published under CC
licenses, they can be used by
anyone under those license terms.
So it is impossible for to manage
how and by who the materials are
being used.
"Stop Ahead" by Tony Heussner is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

13. Challenges of OER - Funding
Since developing OER courses
could be very time-consuming
process, instructors will need to be
paid extra for the amount of extra
work they put in.
"Fund" by CafeCredit.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0